Spafford Farm massacre

Near what is today South Wayne, Wisconsin, militia members and settlers came under assault in an episode remembered by two names, the Spafford Farm massacre and the Wayne massacre, one of the violent chapters of the Black Hawk War. Omri Spafford and his partner Francis Spencer had established the farm in 1830, and in the years leading up to the conflict they had put considerable work into developing the property.

On June 14, 1832, a war party of Kickapoo warriors fell upon five men there. Three white men died on the spot, Spafford among them. When the fighting ended, the toll stood at four white settlers dead along with at least one Native casualty. Two of the men managed to flee the scene alive. One of these survivors spent several anxious days under the false impression that Fort Hamilton had fallen into enemy hands, only turning toward the fort for safety once he learned otherwise.

This attack at Spafford Farm would later set in motion the events leading to the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, an engagement also known by the name Battle of Pecatonica.

Background

The roots of this conflict trace back to an 1804 agreement struck between the Governor of Indiana Territory and several Sauk and Fox leaders concerning the settlement of tribal lands. That accord led, in 1828, to the Sauk and Fox abandoning their territory in Illinois for regions west of the Mississippi. Black Hawk and other Sauk figures rejected the legitimacy of this arrangement, insisting neither the full councils of the tribes had given their consent nor had the individuals who signed possessed any real authority to give away tribal territory.

Embittered over losing the place of his birth, Black Hawk began staging crossings back over the Mississippi starting in 1830, though on each occasion he was talked into retreating westward again without violence erupting. Then, in April of 1832, buoyed by assurances of support from other tribes and from the British, he brought his so-called British Band, numbering roughly a thousand warriors along with noncombatants, back into Illinois territory. When the promised alliances failed to materialize, he sought to head back toward Iowa, but circumstances spun beyond his control, culminating in what became known as the Battle of Stillman's Run.

Further clashes followed this initial confrontation, prompting Wisconsin and Illinois to call up their militias in pursuit of Black Hawk's followers. This broader struggle would come to be remembered as the Black Hawk War. Militia volunteers fell into an ambush at Buffalo Grove on May 19, and that same day brought the raid at Plum River as well as, on May 21, the Indian Creek massacre, an incident that gained far greater notoriety despite standing largely apart from the main thrust of the war. Additional bloodshed arose in the aftermath of Indian Creek, setting the stage for the assault that would come at Spafford Farm.

Massacre

Six men left Fort Hamilton on June 14, 1832, bound for Spafford Farm to put in a day's labor. Barely had they begun their tasks when a band of Kickapoo warriors fell upon them. The attackers had lain hidden among trees near the farmstead, unleashing gunfire the moment their prey was within range. Tools were abandoned as the men fled toward the Pecatonica River, splashing across its waters in a desperate bid for safety. Yet the far bank offered little refuge, for four of them were cut down while scrambling up the opposite side.

Spafford, Searles, and McIllwaine died at once in the chaos, and a fourth man known as "Bull," likely John Compton, also perished. Only Spencer and Million, just seventeen years old, managed to slip away from their pursuers. Million's escape came by way of the river itself; he plunged in, concealed himself among the brush, and eventually made his way back to Fort Hamilton. Spencer's path to safety proved far more arduous. Rather than entering the water, he took cover along the riverbank. A warrior tracked him down, but Spencer struck first, killing his pursuer before he himself could be caught. Days of wandering through the forest followed before he finally found his way to the fort.

His arrival at Fort Hamilton coincided almost exactly with that of Colonel William S. Hamilton, who came leading a substantial force of Menominee volunteers ready to fight against the Sauk and Fox. Seeing this unfamiliar gathering, Spencer feared the worst, that the fort itself had fallen under attack, and fled back into the trees. For a stretch of six to nine days he kept his distance from the fort, until hunger overpowered his caution and forced him into the open, where he finally recognized his error.

Aftermath

News of the killings at Spafford's farm raced to Fort Defiance, roughly five miles to the southeast of Mineral Point. There, thirteen volunteers banded together and set out to track down the natives responsible for the bloodshed. By midnight on June 15 this party had reached Fort Hamilton. Come morning, Bennett Million, who had lived through the ordeal, led the militiamen back to where the killings had taken place. Among those in the group was Alexander Higgenbotham, himself a survivor of the earlier St. Vrain massacre. What they found was gruesome: the dead had been savagely mutilated, and Spafford's body lay without its head. That head turned up nearby, scalped and discarded in the grass along the riverbank. The men buried the ruined remains of their neighbors and searched fruitlessly for Spencer, presuming him among the dead as well.

At the time the violence struck Spafford's farm, Colonel Henry Dodge was stationed at Gratiot's Grove, having just dispatched his men to their respective forts to rest and restock supplies. No sooner had he returned to his own post than news reached him of both the Aubrey killing at Fort Blue Mounds and the disaster at Spafford's place. In response, Dodge dispatched militia units from Fort Defiance, Fort Jackson, and Fort Hamilton toward the site of the carnage.

Following these events, General Henry Atkinson notified Dodge that he would be assuming command of General Alexander Posey's brigade at Fort Hamilton. As Dodge traveled to take charge of the brigade, the crack of a rifle from a band of natives reached his ears. He wasted no time returning to his post, rallying every man available to give chase. Pursued closely by Dodge's force, roughly twenty-five native warriors wove back and forth across the Pecatonica River before realizing escape was impossible, at which point they turned to make their stand in what would become the Battle of Pecatonica.